Rating: 
Summary: Faulty info
Review: Regardless of the minimum requirements listed by the game, do not bother to try if you have less than 128 meg video card. I had the specific card named on the box, and it froze non-stop. I called their tech help...no help. They told me it was probably my AUDIO CARD (????) becuase I had the min requirement video. I did not take their advice and went to a 128 video card, and it has played great since then. The game is fantastic, graphics are beautiful, but they need to be honest with the minimum requirements....and also, don't bother calling their tech help. You will likely know as much about computers as do they.
Rating:
Summary: OK Quit complaining and upgrade already!!!
Review: Yes, you need the specified video card in order to play this game. I got a PowerColor 128MB video card with the ATI Radeon 9200 chipset for $53.00 shipped! from AccuPC - which includes TV Out and DVI connections. I know it cost the price of URU, but it is also far superior to what came with my HP Pavilion 304w. I bought the AGP card (check your motherboard first to be sure you have a AGP slot - if not, buy the PCI card), had the card in and game running in less than half an hour. My motherboard sound card works fine. A prior upgrace to DirectX 9 was flawless.
Once you have the video card set up then you can experience the fun of this game. Being able to move about freely and seemlessly (unlike the prior Myst games) is great fun and a much more realistic experience. I've only gone through the first level of the game, but think the one-star reviews because of hardware requirements are a lop-sided view. It doesn't take very long to be able to maneuver easily, though it is somewhat odd to switch from keyboard to mouse for various functions.
Don't give up and sell your game because of a video card - bite the bullet and upgrade.
Rating: 
Summary: Buy something else from somewhere else.
Review: After trying and failing to install this game on my girlfriend's brand-new, top of the line Dell laptop and my brand new PC with a gig of ram and 256 MB video card, I have determined two things:
1)UbiSoft has made this year's most disappointing game because their intent was to market the product based on the fans' love of the Myst name rather than to design a cutting-edge playable game. Most people who own a computer own a Compaq or a Dell, neither of which come standard with the type of video chipset that is required to run this game. No one should be expected to make a $130 upgrade to play a $50 game.
2)Amazon has done all of its customers a disservice by failing to mention that the system requirements of this game are absolute and the majority of computer users in America will not be able to play this game. I'm a computer tech with ten years of experience, and I couldn't get this software to work, so how does UbiSoft and Amazon expect the average user to do so? And if they fail to properly outline the requirements of this software, how many other products have they failed to disclose pertinent information about? I will be contacting Amazon tonight about returning this poorly designed product, and if they refuse to offer me a credit or refund I will never buy from Amazon again for any reason. Plus I think I'll burn a few hundred copies of Uru and give them out for free in front of Virgin Megastores in Manhattan. I'll let you all know.
Rating:
Summary: DON'T TOUCH URU WITH A TEN FOOT POLE!
Review: What in GOD'S NAME was Cyan thinking!!! I've got a Pentium 4 2.8 ghz with a GeForce 4 128 mb graphics card and 512 mb ram, and I still couldn't get this damned piece of crap Cyan calls a game to run smoothly. URU ran retardedly slow and jerkilly even when I set the graphics and sound attributes to their lowest settings. Someone needs to track down the so-called crack programming team behind this mess and cut their freaking hands off so they can't even think about creating another "game".
I mean, my computer runs C&C: Generals and Sim City 4 like a hot knife cutting through butter, and they're both much prettier looking than URU, and Generals has far more interactive streaming video to incorporate than URU by a long shot.
Whooever made this crap, I want to know how they managed to get a college degree in computer programming, because they sure as hell don't know good code from a hole in the ground.
Bottom line, remove URU from your shopping cart and save your hard-earned money for a game that's ACTUALLY WORTH IT like Half-Life 2, Doom 3, or Syberia 2 . . . IF and WHEN these titles actually come out. PS - Amazon needs to offer a choice of 0 stars on their scale, so people can know when something's THAT BAD.
Rating:
Summary: User Interface is awful!
Review: For all those reviewers who couldn't make this game work with their video cards, don't feel bad about it; just get your refund and thank your lucky stars that you didn't try to play the wretched thing. I'd really like to have a word with the idiot who designed the user interface. There are several ad-hoc standards for interaction and motion, and URU uses none of them. The involuntary switch between first and third-person viewpoints is clunky and confusing. (Try Schizm II for a good example of how to do it, lads). There is no conventional save and restore mechanism: the game 'remembers' your latest position and restores you to the start of that level when you restart the game. Infuriating. Although several of the puzzles involve moving objects, the only way the system allows you to do this is by nudging them with your feet. What was the designer thinking about! Now that I've got further into the game, my initial impression of the graphics has improved: although much of the interiors are that muddy grey/brown typified by games like Morrowind, there are a few nicely-rendered scenes. Backgound music is sparse, and the samples are too short - after the third or fourth iteration, even a pleasant tune becomes irritating. Quite frankly, the game looks like an attempt to capitalize on the Myst branding by a bunch of money-grubbing hacks who wouldn't recognize a playable adventure game if one jumped out from behind a bush and bit their leg off. Biggest disappointment of the 2003 gaming season, I'd say....
Rating:
Summary: DON'T BUY IT!!!
Review: I purchased this game with great expectations, all of the Myst type games have been very, very good. I tried to install this on my three machines (Intel 3.06 gig processor, Intel 2.6 gig processor, and AMD 2400 XP+) and could not get it to work on any of them. I understand the importance of copyguarding games, but when it won't let you play the game because it can't recognize the CD-drive it just installed from, there is a big problem.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredible game... assuming your PC can handle it...
Review: I've looked at a lot of the other reviews here on Amazon.com and I'm beginning to feel that Uru has been unfairly rated. A large amount of them have given it 3 stars or less simply because they weren't able to play it on their system. This is because of two different reasons, by the way: 1. Uru only runs on Windows, it does not run on Macintosh
2. Uru has very critical requirements on what video card you need to have in order to play the game While both of these are disappointments to many people, I do not think they constitute an accurate review of the game itself. Perhaps they've released Uru a bit too far ahead of its time. Looking at the actual CONTENT of Uru, once you're able to play it, it proves itself to be one of the best games of 2003. It starts out much the same way as Myst did. You have no clue what you are supposed to do, and are simply left to figure EVERYTHING out on your own. Without really understanding the significance of your actions, you'll embark on a journey... and pieces of the story are slowly leaked out. The game really puts an emphasis on our natural curiosity. It starts to make sense the deeper you explore. Regarding the tricky gameplay, it is important to point out that you can switch between 1st and 3rd person views. First person is far easier to use, but third person gives you a better sense of scale. The graphics and sound are adjustable before you start up the game, so if your PC is on the low end, you can adjust everything so it runs smoother. The ultra-high quality mode looks brilliant, and even medium quality is still VERY nice. The sound effects are some of the best I've heard. They pan from speaker to speaker, based on where you are in the world. They also reverberate when you enter caves. Very realistic worlds. I should also point out that the music really lends to the atmosphere much like the previous Myst games did. I've also been able to take part in the online portion of the game a few months early, and it is even better than the offline game. You have more clothing to personalize your avatar to look more like YOU. You can explore other places, and with friends, too! New worlds are going to be continually added, so the replay value is nothing short of insane. Most importantly, Uru's online counterpart has an ACTUAL STORYLINE! It involves real people, like you, within the Myst universe. It's a lot like real life. Things change.
Rating:
Summary: LIGHT Gamer - So disappointed
Review: Sadly, I am hugely disappointed in this game for various reasons. I am NOT a heavy gamer, yet I was so in love with the first 3 Myst games that I pre-ordered this game out of pure excitement, then spent more $$ upgrading my video card on my brand-new system when the game wouldn't play. Now that I finally have the game working I feel seriously cheated. Think of all the anticipation Star Wars fans had for Episode I and then were delivered Jar-Jar Binks. The reason I loved the original games was that they were quiet, the interaction was easy, the music and the graphics were beautiful, and it was basically a nice, stress-free way to wind down after another day of work. This game provides none of these comforts, except for maybe the graphics. The ridiculous 3rd person view is difficult to maneuver; if I wanted to play a platform game I would have kept the the GameCube my brother gave me for Xmas last year. I must agree with a previous reviewer who said that Exile had the best interface. I personally don't care about the the live aspect of the game because as to quote another reviewer, "wasn't the best part of Myst that you never saw other people?" Another reason I love the "old Myst" is that the games are well-crafted and the software doesn't have a lot of bugs; otherwise I would just buy Myst clones and be happy with the game genre. It is just one more disappointment that the creators of Myst decided to create this game that is a clone of other video games & definitely NOT in the innovative vein that they themselves created; another blow is the fact that this game is NOT bug-free, as even on my newly updated-just-for-the-game-system it takes at least 15 minutes for the game to start, and frankly I'm frightened to close it out for fear that it will never start again. If you like the idea of a low-key, sedated, beautifully presented Sonic the Hedgehog or Jak & Daxter you will probably like this game. If you are expecting the ingenuity of the original 3 games you should get a prescription for Prozac before buying this game, or else you'll just get depressed. As others have said before me, maybe you should just get your fix re-playing the old games.
Rating:
Summary: Uru - Game leaves out important details
Review: The game Uru is disappointing. The software can only be installed on 2 specific video cards. Unfortunately the product specifications are ambiguous. They state the names of the 2 cards or "higher". In fact, higher is not an option since technical support at UBI software state the product will only run on the 2 specific cards named. This is unheard of in today's gaming environment. UBI should clearly and largely state this information on the front of the box and in bold lettering in the specifications.
Rating:
Summary: Mac folk should exercise patience
Review: I've read all the reviews to date. While I'm just as frustrated as the next Mac guy (and I've been a Mac guy for 20 years) that there is no Mac version, from what I've read so far, I'm not convinced that I'm missing much. While a relative handful here give the game rave reviews, it appears that the rather narrow system requirements, along with the plethora of bugs and patches that typically plague Windoze systems regardless, add up to a less than exemplary experience, despite the advance hype. I'm certainly not going to invest in a new PeeCee just to play a $70 game. realMyst spoiled me. Let the Windoze people find the bugs - I mean, they're certainly used to it. Bill Gates has trained them well! By the time a kickin' Mac OS X version DOES become available, all those bugs and video card problems will be solved. It may be worth the wait.
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